


Troublesome Affairs

by priinceofheart



Series: Fantasy Bullshit [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Derse/Prospit Royalty, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Classpect Powers (Homestuck), Fucked up the tags oops, Gen, Magic, Technically no dirkjake but, hal is a brat, idk where I’m going with this I just wanted to write, lets see, man this is like a whole au, more tags to be added as I go I suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22588531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/priinceofheart/pseuds/priinceofheart
Summary: Sneaking out past curfew is one thing, sneaking out to visit a prince, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing. They should’ve known it’d come to bite them in the rear eventually.———Just a little fic I wrote in between classes.
Relationships: Auto-Responder | Lil Hal & Dirk Strider, Dirk's Bro | Alpha Dave Strider & Dirk Strider, Jake English/Dirk Strider
Series: Fantasy Bullshit [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625320
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

“Dirk, can I come with you today?”

You stop dead in your tracks, almost startled by your little brother. You take a deep breath, suppressing the urge to groan in dismay. It’s nearly impossible, but you manage.

He’s not supposed to be awake; it’s well past his bedtime, and his caretaker should’ve put him to bed hours ago. You turn around to face him, spotting your brother sitting on the stairs. Judging by the fact that he’s still dressed in his sleepwear, he probably snuck out of bed and waited for you to come down. How typical of him.

“No.” You say flatly, making your way over to him. If Dave couldn’t put him to sleep, you might as well do it for him. “What are you doing awake?” You ask once you’re in front of him, crossing your arms and trying to look as displeased as you can. It’s not very hard, seeing as he seems to have an aura that makes those around him peeved while in his presence. Not that you mean that literally; you’re not quite sure what you would do if your brother had such a curse on him. Despite all the meddling he does, you really do care for him deep down. You just wish he’d leave you alone once in awhile.

“ _Well,_ ” He starts, looking away from you and towards one of the cracks on the wall. “You’re always up this late, sneaking out to visit Ja-“ You tense and slap your hand over his mouth, stopping him mid-sentence.

You look around warily, checking for anyone who may be eavesdropping in on your conversation. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but you’re fairly certain there are no crows outside. Once you’re confident the coast is clear, you turn back to your brother, hissing quietly, “ _Don’t say his name_ _here_.” You’re not sure what would happen to you, or to _Jake_ , if they found out you were sneaking out to visit the village boy down by the gates once a week. Especially after you’ve been warned not to.

He frowns and tries to say something, seemingly forgetting about the hand over his mouth, and you sigh. You remove your hand from his mouth, wiping it off on your cloak. “Get up, I’m taking you back to bed.” You adjust your shirt’s collar, waiting for him to stand.

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t, because when has Hal ever listened to you? You’re not sure what you expected, honestly.

Instead of getting up, he just crosses his arms and makes himself comfortable there on the stairs. “No.” He says to you, and you feel your eye twitch in irritation. That’s about all of a reaction he’s going to get from you, you don’t want to show too much vulnerability around him. If you give him an opportunity to egg you on further, he won’t hesitate to take it. He tends to be a brat like that.

You grab his arm and haul him up to his feet, feeling oddly satisfied with the shocked gasp that gets out of him. He struggles against you, stopping only once you’ve let go of his arm. He glares at you and rubs at where you had grabbed him, and you immediately go to wrap your arms around his tiny waist, hoisting him up no problem. He starts struggling again as you unsteadily walk up the stairs, threatening to tell your parents and Dave on you if you don’t put him down. You, in turn, threaten to drop him down the stairs if he keeps it up. That gets him to stop, thank god. If he had kept at it, you might’ve lost your balance and sent you both falling down the stairs.

You don’t want that to happen, so you don’t rush yourself as you climb up the stairwell.   


  


Once you’ve got Hal tucked in bed and have fulfilled every one of his tedious requests (another pillow, a glass of water, a bedtime story), you slip back out of his quarters, shutting the door as quietly as you can behind you. Heaving out an exhausted sigh, you slump against the door. If somebody had told you nearly six years ago that Hal would’ve been such a handful, you likely wouldn’t have been as excited for his arrival as you had been.

Regardless, now that you’ve got your meddlesome brother out of the way, you may as well head to the gates. Otherwise, Jake might assume you forgot or got caught and head off.

You head back downstairs, checking yourself over in one of the windows near the main entrance to make yourself look more presentable. Licking your slightly chapped lips, you run one last hand through your hair before you push open the door.

You step out, shutting the heavy door behind you, and glance around a little nervously. Everything looks clear, almost suspiciously so. You take a deep breath, toss your hood over your head and-

_**CAW!!** _

You are nearly startled out of your skin at the sound the wretched bird makes, turning abruptly in the general direction the sound came from. Of course, you can’t see it. It’s dark out, and you wouldn’t be able to see any crows out even if you had a torch on you.

You’re not quite sure if crows are normally out this late at night, but Dave’s crows were never quite normal. Nearly all of the corvids in the kingdom are acquainted with him, though he claims only a select few are his familiars. The crows serve a special purpose; to be Dave’s eyes and help him keep watch over the kingdom (which included the two young princes).

And you just got busted.

You’re not sure if it’s simply just a coincidence the bird was there, or if Dave had it situated outside of the castle tonight because he knew you’d be coming out. You’re not sure which option you’d prefer.

Either way, you’re in deep shit now. Listening closely, you hear the flapping of the crow’s wings, gone off to tell Dave on you. As if he hadn’t heard the bird’s caw already. Internally cursing yourself, you draw your cloak closer around yourself and walk as quickly as you can down the path, hoping to make it to the gates before your guardian catches you.

You’re apparently not as lucky as you’d hope to be.

As soon as you get halfway there, a hand grabs onto your hood, pulling you back and nearly choking you. Holy _shit_ , when did he get so good at sneaking up on you? He must’ve gotten some kind of charm from aunt Rose, you can usually tell when he’s coming.

“Where do you think _you’re_ going?”


	2. Chapter 2

You’ve been sitting here since the sun, now long gone, started setting, and to be quite frank, you’re not sure how much longer you’ll be able to stay. Your behind has gone numb from sitting on the tree branch for such a long period of time, and the shapes in the dark are starting to freak you out a little.

Most residents of Derse are used to the creatures that lurk in the dark, and yet despite being here for nearly four years, they still find a way to make your breath catch in your throat. Oh, how you miss the glowing radiance of Prospit...

You sigh wistfully, thinking back to the friends you had back in Prospit, such as your dearest cousin, Jane, and...

...Shucks. Now that you’re really thinking about it, the only person you were really friends with was Jane, who was technically your second cousin. You suppose that also means you have royal blood flowing through your veins, in a way. Unfortunately, if you just so much as vaguely mentioned that to the local Prospitians, they would likely set up a guillotine and have your head in just two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Things are a little dicey back home right now.

Shuddering, you think back to when you had first left Prospit. Your grandmother had taken you in the middle of the night so that nobody would’ve seen you leave. Not that they would’ve anyways, you trust your grandmother’s magic to keep you safe. The terrors of Derse, however, were not fooled by a simple Witch’s spell. You’ve heard rumours of malevolent Dersian spirits lurking in the dark and preying on those daring enough to roam the country at night, but it was another thing entirely to witness it firsthand.

You give yourself a little shake. Now’s not the time to think about any of that, you have to keep an eye out for Dirk! Your princely companion said he might take awhile tonight, but you never expected for him to take this long. As much as you don’t want to, you might just have to throw in the towel and head home. You nearly gave your gran a heart attack the last time you stayed until dawn, and you don’t want to put her through that again, not to mention the punishment she had given you was one you wouldn’t exactly want to endure again.

The calm silence of the night is broken by a the cry of a crow in the distance, startling you badly enough that you lose your balance and fall right out of the tree you were hiding in. Flailing your arms and yelling some profanity your Gran would surely disapprove of if she heard, you fall down and land squarely on your rump.

You stand up rather shakily, using one hand to pull yourself up while your other rubs the sore spot where you’ve fallen. That’s surely going to leave a nasty bruise in the morning. Oh, if only Janey were here; she could heal you right up with hardly any strain!

If you listen closely enough, you can hear the flapping of a bird’s wings, and realization of what just occurred slowly dawns on you. Dirk had warned you about this being a possibility, but you hadn’t had expected Dave to ever actually catch him in the act of sneaking out. You let out a shuddery breath, looking between the castle wall and the road winding down to the village.

While any reasonable person would’ve probably called it quits and head home, you are not about to give up that easily. You are _at least_ going to check and see if your best friend is okay before leaving. You know deep down nothing bad would’ve happened to him, but it doesn’t hurt to check and make sure.

You close your eyes, and before you can talk yourself out of it, your feet have carried you over to the tall, impeding, stone wall in front of you. It appears a lot taller from this angle. You grab onto one of the stone bricks in front of you, trying your best to swallow down your nerves, and attempt to hoist yourself up.

You slip almost immediately, falling down onto your bottom. You internally swear to yourself and pick yourself off, drawing two of the little daggers hanging by your side. You size up the wall once more, and, after finding a good place to start, stab one of the daggers into the crack in between the ashlar.

Deep down, you realize this likely isn’t very good for the blades, but you could hardly care about them. They’re not exactly your weapon of choice, and you only have them in case you stumble into trouble while out and about. You hold onto the grip a little tighter and hoist yourself up, managing to catch the toe of your boot onto one of the bricks near the bottom.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard..” You chuckle to yourself, glancing down at what little progress you’ve made with that one step. You let out a deep exhale, looking back up at how much more you have to climb. Best get started now.

  


After way too long of a climb, several slips, and nearly losing your glasses, you finally make it to the top. Taking a moment to rest on the wall walk, you lay down on your back and look up at the stars. You’re surprised you haven’t been caught yet, but you suppose you have the charmed cloak Dirk gave you to thank for that.

He didn’t make it, of course; a Prince of Heart (you find it rather ironic his class happens to be Prince) could have never made such a charm. He claimed to have gotten it from a rather dear childhood friend of his, presumably someone belonging to the Void aspect. The charm makes the bearer completely inconspicuous, meaning that as long as you wear it, nobody should be able to see or recognize you. You’ve had it for quite awhile though, and it’s been losing it’s magic touch. It’s only a matter of time before it stops working entirely.

Once you’ve managed to catch your breath, you roll onto your stomach and scoot over to the other side of the walk to peek over the parapet, curious to know just what’s going on. It seems your previous attempt at catching your breath was in vain, because as soon as you catch sight of the scene down below, you lose it all over again.

You’re not quite sure what you expected, but seeing Dave Lalonde in his sleepwear and a pair of slippers certainly was not it. Apparently, chasing after a fleeing prince does not require getting dressed first, and you have to stifle a giggle as you take in his attire. You know that, with the aspect he’s familiar with, he could’ve stopped at any time to get dressed, but instead chose to head out in his pajamas for the hell of it.

Seeing as Time is rather rare, and Dave hasn’t felt like revealing any of his secrets, you, along with a majority of the world, aren’t quite sure just what the extent of his abilities are, but you’re certain he could’ve taken a minute to get dressed before chasing after Dirk.

You were so caught off guard by the sight of the Knight, you nearly forgot what you had climbed up here for, which was to...

Shit. You think you came up to check if Dirk was alright, but you’re not quite sure anymore. Judging by what you can see from here, he seems perfectly fine, so there’s no point in being up here any longer. Maybe you can try to eavesdrop a little first, they seem to be arguing right now.

You lean off of the parapet a little, straining your ear as you try to listen in on their conversation. You think you hear your name thrown around once or twice, but it’s ridiculously hard to make out anything else.

Unable to control yourself, you let out a groan of frustration. You are just dying to know what they’re saying about you, but you can’t make heads nor tails out of their conversation. Leaning farther, you try your best at least read their lips, feeling rather bummed when you’re inevitably unable to. You’re not sure why you even bothered, you've never been able to see that far away in your life.

Stretching as you stand, you decide to give up on trying to eavesdrop any longer. You look down from where you climbed up from, gulping as you realize you didn’t quite think this plan through well enough. Oh, the things you do to quiet down your anxieties sometimes... You almost regret coming up here now.

Rubbing your eyes underneath your glasses, you sigh. Seeing as you’re not risking any encounters with the castle guard, the only way would be the way you came. You are really not looking forward to this. If your Class wasn’t such rubbish, you probably could’ve floated down safely and be over with it. Alas, you got assigned possibly the worst class of all; Page.

...Well, no. It’s not the worst, but it’s definitely not as cool as being a Witch or Maid. You can’t use your Aspect until you “reach your full potential”, whatever that’s supposed to mean, so you’re basically useless compared to everyone else. The journey Pages have to go through to unlock this potential is supposed to be longer and more difficult than any other Class, so stories about fully realized Pages are pretty uncommon. You suppose that the fact that they're always stronger and more adept at utilizing their Aspect’s power than other classes makes up for it all, but you often wish you didn’t have to deal with the nonsense being a Page comes with.

Regardless, your Class and Aspect (Classpect?) are fairly useless at this moment in time, seeing as you only got assigned them just last year on your sixteenth birthday.

You suppose you’ll just have to climb down like you did up. The height of the wall seems much greater than it did when you were at the bottom, and you have to give yourself a little shake to stop thinking about what would happen if you fell.

Throwing one leg over the parapet, you hold on tightly as you try to lower yourself down enough to catch some kind of foothold. When you think you’ve got it, you lift your other leg up and over, making yet another attempt to catch your foot on something on the smooth stone. You. don’t find one in reach. Crud, that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Swallowing down your fears of imminent peril, you remove one hand from it’s perch to grab one of your daggers—except... it seems you’ve forgotten them on the wall walk. You groan and hit your palm against your forehead. How could you have been so daft to forget the one thing you needed to make the trip down? Adjusting the amount of weight you’re putting on your foot, you reach up to grab ahold of the parapet, and—

A crow, raspy and boisterous, caws from behind you, flapping its wings as it perches on the tree you sat on just a few hours ago. You, scared out of your damn mind, jump and lose your grip on the parapet, falling backwards with a loud yelp.

“No, no, oh god-“ You cry out, trying desperately to turn yourself around to grab ahold of something, anything, as you rapidly descend. In your short lived fit of terrified flailing, you manage to lose your cloak, the cold air biting against your skin and giving you goosebumps. The ground below is rapidly approaching, and you have no way of stopping it. Try as you might, your powers are rather useless here. You couldn’t manipulate Hope if your life depended on it, which right now it kind of does!

In the back of your mind, you can make out the resounding cry of that blasted crow, and everything

slows

down.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can just barely see that the crow, apparently having taken flight again, frozen in place in the air. Glancing back down, you see you’ve stopped falling, though you seem to be paralyzed at the moment. How. curious. Did you somehow manage to do this? Could it be that you, Jacob English-Harley, have—

“Hey,” Ah, never mind then. The sound of footsteps approach you from behind, and before you can even confirm it’s him, you’ve realized just what has happened.

“Pretty nasty slip you had there.” A hand finds its way to your shoulder, and you feel... something happening inside of you. The sensation is something akin to tension being unwound from inside of you, and before you know it, you’ve fallen and hit the ground. The damage you receive from that is far less serious than it would’ve had that brief pause in time never happened, but it still hurts like hell.

You push yourself off the ground and sit up, looking back at your saviour. Behind you stands Dave Lalonde, Knight of Time and (ex) head of the royal guard, dressed in his red pajamas and smirking down at you. “No need to thank me,” He says, crossing his arms against his chest. You can’t help but stare into his eyes, rather intrigued with how his irises have taken the form of his Aspect’s symbol. It’s a common phenomenon when using magic, of course, but you still find it pretty neat.

“I know, I’m great and you literally owe me your life, but I’ve really got to skedaddle.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder, pointing towards the castle walls. “Can’t keep a prince waiting, shit’s mad uncool. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to be able to tell with the world like this-“ he gestures to everything around you, frozen in time, “-but it’s the thought that counts.”

“Oh, yes, I do know a thing or two about keeping people waiting.” You say without thinking about it, looking down and kicking a pebble as you think about how long you waited for Dirk. Dave snorts, and your eyes shoot back up to him. “N-not that I’m saying I’ve been kept waiting by anyone or anything!” You laugh nervously and rub the back of your neck, glancing back over to the wall where your friend lies inside.

“Don't try pulling that bullshit with me, English.” Dave warns, carefree expression hardening into something more serious. “If I didn’t know that Dirk would hate me for it and somehow end up killing himself, I probably would’ve just let you fall to your death. It’d sure as hell make my job a whole lot easier.” You tug at the collar of your shirt, thanking the twelve gods that you’re still here. Dave, sensing your anxious demeanour, sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, Jake. You’re a nice kid, and I’m happy Dirk has at least one friend that doesn’t live in that damn castle, but you’ve got to stop with this.”

You open your mouth to say something, but Dave interrupts before you can get a single word out. “No, don’t. Seriously, you need to lay off for a bit. Dirk’s got enough shit on his plate as it is, he can’t keep getting into trouble for sneaking out to visit some Prospitian village boy.”

As much as you hate to admit it, he does have a point. Dirk has quite a lot of responsibilities he has to attend to, you’d hate to get in the way of them. “I completely understand, sir.” You say solemnly, and Dave makes a face at that. “Forgive my botherations, I had no clue my acquaintance with the prince was such a problem for you and him. Though, I do suppose I ought to have seen it coming..” You look away, unable to meet Dave’s piercing gaze.

“I don’t think I’ve thanked you for saving my life back there yet.” You say, despite him having said not to thank you a few minutes ago. Looking back up at him, you see his face has smoothed out into something more neutral, though the gears in his eyes keep ticking away. “I really owe you one for that, thank you.” You offer him a shy smile, unsure of what else to say.

“Don’t mention it.” He smiles back at you and ruffles your hair. “You should head home, it’s pretty late. I’ll give you five minutes before I’m undoing all of this.” He makes a vague gesture towards the crow, still frozen in the air.

“Righto! Then I best be on my way.” You give him a courteous nod, and he, in turn, gives you a mock salute. You shake your head and turn away, heading down the road that winds back into the village.

“Stay safe, English, and be sure to write. Dirk probably wouldn’t take it too well if you just cut off all ties with him.” He calls out behind you, and you make a mental reminder to send a letter as soon as you can.

With that in mind, you head home back to your little cottage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here we go.
> 
> This took way too long for me to finish, and it feels a little sloppy, but that’s okay.  
> There’s so much I wanted to include in this fic, but I felt it was too soon to do any of that. This fic is something like.. a prologue to the actual thing, where I’m hopefully going to be able to explain more stuff.
> 
> I wanted to include more stuff involving the classpect magic system I’ve got in place here, but I felt it wouldn’t really fit. I’ll just list minor details here.  
> -Dave’s freaky crow shit does not have to do with his Classpect, that’s some lore shit I’ll hopefully explain if/when I write the actual fic for the AU in the future.  
> -Classpect eyes! When you use your classpect, your eyes will take the shape and colour of your aspect’s symbol. They each presumably have minor quirks to them, like how the Time symbol will tick once per second.  
> -You can make little charms infused with your classpect’s magic, but only certain classes can do that. Wonder how Jake got that void charm.. it doesn’t seem likely that a Rogue would be able to do that. Unless...? Haha, just kidding.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr, my username is jmakesthebestjam. Feel free to ask any questions about the fic.  
> Thanks for reading my short little drabble, and have a nice day!

**Author's Note:**

> So, while the AU in still in the works, I do have a few things planned out. In case it wasn’t clear in the fic, Hal’s just a bratty six year old (for now). I do plan to age him up a little as the story progresses, but for now he’s still a little kid. I still have yet to actually give Dirk an actual age, but he’s going to be older than him by quite a bit (he’s currently a teenager here).


End file.
